Thrive - Council on Competitiveness

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Table of Contents

Letter from the President
Compete 2.0: Skills Advisory Committee
Key Take-Aways
Creating the Context
Skills Strategies for the Future
Untapped Opportunities
Service Economy Skills
The Innovation Advantage
Skills for Sustainability
Last Thoughts
Notes
Council on Competitiveness Board, Executive Committee,
General Membership and National Affiliates
Council on Competitiveness Staff
About the Council on Competitiveness
Compete 2.0: Program Leadership

Published April 2008

Thrive. The Skills Imperative provides a compelling, short and easily accessible analysis of the key trends underpinning future workforce skills challenges and opportunities in the United States. Drawing upon the Council's leadership in innovative capacity, Thrive is the first in a series of targeted benchmarking reports published by the Council's Compete 2.0 Initiative.

Slowing growth of the U.S. workforce has the potential to slow economic output if productivity does not increase. Lack of adequate reading and math skills among new U.S. workers compound this challenge. At the same time, hundreds of millions of educated foreign workers are entering the global workforce and competing for jobs that are increasingly vulnerable to offshoring.

Through combining findings from the 2006 Competitiveness Index: Where America Stands with real-world business cases, Thrive demonstrates an urgent need for the United States to develop a national skills agenda to be competitive in the global economy and ensure a rising standard of living for its citizens.